Negro Prison Songs from The Mississippi State Penitentiary; A Selection.
Historical Recordings From Parchman Farm 1947.
Recorded by Dr Harry Oster

1. No More, My Lawd
2. Old Alabama
3. Black Women
4. Jumpin' Judy
5. Whoa Buck
6. Prettiest Train
7. Old Dollar Mamie
8. It Makes A Long Time Man Fell Bad

A collection of songs recorded at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1947. The best single document of the African American work song and field holler tradition.... The group work songs, while moving and an excellent examples of the style, are by their nature less distinctive than the extraordinary solo performances like my favories "It Makes A Long Time Man Fell Bad". These are all very powerful and all together richly African American.

"These songs belong to the musical tradition which Africans brought to the New World, but they are also as American as the Mississippi River. They were born out of the very rock and earth of this country, as black hands broke the soil, moved, reformed it, and rivers of stinging sweat poured upon the land under the blazing heat of Southern skies, and are mounted upon the passion that this struggle with nature brought forth. They tell us the story of the slave gang, the sharecropper system, the lawless work camp, the chain gang, the pen." --Alan Lomax


Keywords : African Americans -- Mississippi -- Music. | Prisoners' songs. | Work songs -- Mississippi. | Blues (Music) -- Mississippi -- 1941-1950.

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